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Friday, 8 August 2014

Baked Chocolate Doughnuts

Baked doughnuts. Undoubtedly the best way to forget any results-day-induced anxiety (no matter how many recurring dreams I have, I'm sure my results will not be given to me on a post-it note, dammit subconscious). These are so simple and quick to make - mine were cooked and decorated and eaten within an hour of deciding I wanted to bake them.

The sponge is light and fluffy, while also being moist and damp. It tastes like a brownie-cake hybrid, but 10 times better. The glaze is runny and adds an extra chocolate hit, and allows for a mega-ton of sprinkles to be added to the doughnuts - perfect.

I made both large and small doughnuts, mainly because we had one big pan and one small pan and I'm impatient and wanted to get them all cooked in one go, but it also allows for a taste comparison - to be honest, both sizes are equally good, but I'll always pick a big one because you get more food...

Another plus side to these doughnuts is that they can be decorated with pretty much anything - I went for a range of sprinkles, chocolate chips, chocolate sprinkles, and glitter. They look great plain as well, the options are endless (but I wouldn't advise decorating them with onions or something weird that wouldn't taste too good).

I used this recipe from Joy the Baker, but I changed the measurements into grams below, and made a couple of changes.

Recipe (makes 6 large and 7 small doughnuts, or around 9 large/15 small):

60g butter

125g plain flour

30g cocoa powder

100g light brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

120ml buttermilk (I used a substitute as I didn't have any - mix 120ml milk with 1 tbsp lemon juice, leave to stand for 5-10 minutes before using)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160oC, and make sure the rack is in the top 3rd of the oven. Grease doughnut pans.

Melt the butter on a low heat, and keep heating it until it is just browned. Remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda and salt together.

Whisk the butter, buttermilk, egg and vanilla together until well combined.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, ensuring all the flour is well incorporated.

Fill the doughnut circles in the pan up to around 2/3rds of the way up. I found the easiest way to do this was by putting the mixture in a ziploc bag, cutting a corner off, and piping it in. Alternatively, use a teaspoon.

Bake small doughnuts for 10 minutes, and larger ones for 12 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Leave to cool, turning out onto a wire rack after 10 minutes or so.

Glaze:

150g icing sugar

3 tbsp cocoa powder

3-4 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients together until smooth.

Press the doughnuts into the glaze, being careful not to submerge/break them in half.